Tired of Running
by IWantYouInMyLife
Summary: Steve had done the right thing all his life. Now it was time to be a little selfish.


**Author's Note: So, yeah, okay, I wrote a one-shot. Do I have six WIP's waiting to be updated? Yes. Do I have the time to be doing this? No. Will I ever learn? Probably not.**

 **Anyway, I hope you all enjoy this piece. I've been reading so much Avengers fanfic lately that it's all I've been thinking about — perhaps because I'm still trying to fill the void left behind by Infinity War.**

 **Disclaimer: People do stupid things. Don't say you haven't been warned. Also, fluff. Kinda.**

* * *

"He'll come," she said, resting a hand on his shoulder in a poor attempt at comfort. Steve would believe it when he saw it, and the longer he waited more it seemed clear that his waiting game would be a failure — much like all other times before.

"Maybe I should-" he tried.

"He will not miss it, Steve, trust me on this, okay?" Pepper said firmly, leaving no room for discussion. "Tony will bail on parties, conferences, and even the announcement of a new department of his own company, but he does not miss the birthday celebration of one of the few people he still cares about. Before I blow my candles, he'll be here."

She truly believed that; he could see it. There wasn't a single speck of doubt in her gaze as she spoke, which was an impressive show of confidence and loyalty on her part. Especially because, since the public fallout of the Avengers, Tony had been holed up in his workshop and had yet to come out for anything.

He opened his mouth to say something — probably something rather ungrateful to say to the woman who was helping him meet Tony even after all the fights between them that she undoubtedly knew about — when he noticed the excitement running across the room.

It was him. Of course.

When Anthony Stark arrived, there was no way of missing it. He commanded the attention of the room with his presence alone; it was an overwhelming sight to see. He strolled inside the saloon with his usual impertinent stroll; sunglasses on his face and perfectly fitted blood-red suit hugging his body. The conversation died all around the room as the attention shifted toward the owner of the biggest company in the world.

He wasn't alone, though. Following behind him were three bodyguards, dressed in formal black suits and earpieces clearly on sight. They weren't being discreet about it, not even slightly. They all towered over Tony, easily over 6'4'', while scanning the whole room for possible threats. It hurt to think that perhaps he was considered one of those threats.

As Tony advanced inside the room, people seemed to be stepping over each other to have a chance at speaking with him. Steve noticed with no little disgust that woman and men alike plastered a fake smile on their faces as soon as he came close to them, trying to come off as seductive to a man who had seen it all already. He knew all the tricks, done by prettier and smarter people than the slime slugs in that party. It made his hand itch as he suppressed the need to stride over to where Tony was and shield him with his body from the crowd.

Not that Tony would allow him to do so, of course. The man was probably more inclined to hit him than to allow him the chance to protect him. It didn't make it any less difficult to pretend to be indifferent, though. Steve leaned against the large stone column behind him, partly to face away from the crowd and pretend none of what he saw was actually happening, and partly to hide from Tony's sight as the man walked towards Pepper, who carried on calmly sipping on her champagne as she waited for her friend to cross the room.

"Told you he'd come," she said softly, staring straight ahead and barely moving her lips.

Yeah, she did. It was just another fact about Tony that Steve did not know, just another quirk he had never bothered to find out before... before all when to hell. He wanted to now — damn, how he wanted.

The waiting was unbearable. Steve had already waited for months on end, had already waited for the three hours of the party the engineer had missed, but the wait for him to cross the room was quickly trying his patience in ways it had seldom been tested before.

He was a soldier, he knew how to wait for the target, so why was it so impossible to remain still as Tony stopped to talk to every. single. person. on that party?

It was madness.

Seconds before he broke free of his hiding place and ran towards him with no care for subtlety, Steve felt the presence of Tony Stark as he stopped in front of Pepper, holding a small box in his hand. Steve watched from the corner of his eyes as he tried to fade into the background.

"Happy birthday," the man said, his voice soft with fondness. It wasn't a tone Steve had heard before from the man and it stirred something inside him that he refused to name.

"Tony." Was all she said in return, accepting the box but making no further motion to open it or even look at it. Her attention was all on him as she held his gaze.

"Hope I'm not too late or anything," he began, scratching his goatee absentmindedly. "I got a little carried away working on the Mark-"

"No," she interrupted, stepping even closer. "Tony, you're fine."

"Good, that's good," he answered before he seemed to exhale strongly in defeat. "Oh, fuck it." Tony grabbed her by the waist and pulled her close in a flash, his other hand moving to hold her head as he hugged her with all his might, cradling her in the dip of his neck. In return, Pepper didn't hesitate, she hugged back, throwing her arms around his neck and whispering words of comfort in his ear.

"I'm so glad you're here," she whispered. "I've missed you so much. Seriously, Tony. I love you."

Steve didn't move, he didn't twitch. It wasn't like he was bothered by their obvious show of affection, of course not. It was not as if he felt a deep need to shove her aside and take her place as the one to hold and comfort Tony. Absolutely not.

"I love you too, babe," he said it back, no hesitance either. He clearly meant it. Steve also didn't care.

After what felt like an eternity later, they stepped away from their hold of each other, still ignoring the entire party happening around them. It was then that she decided to spill the news.

"Tony, I need to tell you something. Please hear me out first, okay?" Her tone was pleading. Probably because she knew what their odds were.

"Pepper." In return, his tone was cautious. "Please don't tell me this is another interventi-"

"No, not that," she denied, shaking her head. "But there's someone I want you to see."

"For the last time, I'm not going to see a shrink," he denied, stepping back some.

"No! That's not that either."

Suddenly Steve couldn't wait anymore. He had waited for long enough, there's no way he would stay hidden for another second as she struggled to find the right words to explain his presence.

He stepped out of his hiding place, interrupting whatever Pepper would say and calling the attention to him instantly. Steve could almost see it in slow-motion, the way Tony's head snapped to the side, eyes zooming in on his body, going over the dark old jeans covering his legs to the black shirt straining to stay on his body and finally, to his face. Their eyes met and it was fire. Black eyes meeting baby blues. Tony's widened, shocked ones and Steve's pleading, waiting.

A million thoughts ran through his mind in that instant, all things he had rehearsed in preparation for that moment, all perfect explanations, and apologies, all sitting at the tip of his tongue, waiting for the moment he would open his mouth and say all he needed to say. All for nothing, because nothing came out.

Instead, Steve drank the sight of the man he spent the past few months missing more than he thought possible. His sunglasses had been pushed to the top of his head, keeping the unruly hair out of his face and allowing his eyes to be in full sight as neither man moved to speak or walk away. His famous goatee was perfectly groomed around his lips — but no, Steve would not focus on his mouth. Nope. His shirt contrasted with his sun-kissed skin, and his dark suit hugged all the muscle in his arms and torso.

It was a picture. One clearly contrasting to the one Steve knew he must be making in the mind of the engineer, with his cheap clothes and messed up hair.

The moment stretched forever as they searched for words to fill the silence, which had already rained for far too long for it to be polite. It was broken, though, when one of the bodyguards stepped forward, bringing them out of their daydreams.

"Mr. Stark?" He asked, clearly preoccupied with the terseness of the moment. Tony opened his mouth to answer, and Steve panicked. In a second, he would be outed as the outlaw he currently was, and would be escorted out of the party by that same bodyguard.

It wasn't the thought of having to escape the police that sprang him into action, it was the possibility of not having the chance to say what he had gone there to say, of not even having the time to do what he needed to do.

Steve took three large steps forward until he nearly invaded Tony's personal space, carefully studying the situation as Tony's snapped his head back to watch his moves, only turning more shocked as Steve kept getting closer and closer.

There wasn't time for pleasantries.

"Please," he whispered, focusing all his attention on the man in front of him. He just needed the chance to say what he needed to say.

For a second something flicked in Tony's eyes — desperation, longing, need, sadness. At that moment, Steve saw all that he needed to know he wasn't alone in his desire to fix things, that the separation was killing him just as surely as it was killing Steve, that his façade of playboy billionaire was still only that: a façade.

It passed just as quickly as it came, however, and in the next second his walls came in full force, leaving behind only the blank stare of an uninterested individual in the face of a strange.

"Relax, he's no one," Tony said evenly, waving the man back.

And yeah, that hurt. Even though it meant nothing, Steve still faltered as the words left the man's mouth. He wanted to be anything in Tony's life — anything but no one.

But Tony was turning to walk away, to leave and Steve panicked once again, making a stupid move he would've never gone for if he was in his right mind.

His leg moved of its own accord, sliding behind Tony's and striking his ankle in a single fast movement. If Natasha had been there, she would've been proud of him for the smoothness with which he had managed to rob the man's balance and send him down sprawling into the expansive marble ground. She would've not, however, been proud of his own uncoordinated stance, which quickly went to hell when Tony snapped both his legs around his calf and tugged. Hard. Just as Tony had moments before, Steve went down. He fell next to the engineer, the back of his head knocking hard against the cold marble, and his legs still locked in the middle of Tony's.

Adrenaline pumping, he flinched away from the punch coming his way and, instead, grabbed the wrist in front of his face and used it to hold the man tight as he flipped over him — one knee in between Tony's legs, the other bent near his hips. He loomed over him, feeling stupid for his need to gasp for air from their two-second tumble on the ground. He was a soldier — a super soldier, at that. It was ridiculous to feel his heart pounding against his ribcage as he tried to get a hold of himself.

The sound of a loud gasp and of fingers dragging upon the triggers of guns snapped him out of his self-flagellation but failed to get him from his position over Tony. He had been shot before; he would survive – this was too important.

"Mister, release him. Now!" The order was clear. So was the warning. Steve ignored both.

"What are you doing?" Tony asked, trying to shake his hand free. "Get the fuck off of me!"

But Steve couldn't. Not yet, anyway.

"Tony," He breathed. "Please."

"I-" And for the first time ever, Tony Stark seemed to lose the ability of speech. Whatever he had meant to say died on his lips and, instead, he gaped at Steve, ceasing his struggle against his hold.

" _Please,_ " Steve finally begged, allowing his voice to crack and his eyes to show all he needed it to as he lowered his body even further to mix his breath his Tony's.

"Sir, I won't ask again, get away from Mr. Stark," one of the bodyguards demanded. Steve could hear the steel in the man's voice — he would follow through with his threat. And still, he refused to move.

That did it.

Tony waved his free hand at them, his eyes never leaving Steve's as he ordered:

"Stand down. Cover for us."

In unison they moved, putting their guns away and moving to stand in front of them to cover them from the rest of the party. Apparently, he hadn't forgotten they were in the middle of a birthday party with dozens of guests surrounding them. Well, it had to be good that one of them still had use of their brain.

Steve clearly couldn't be trusted to make sensible choices, because his other hand left the ground to land on Tony's white shirt, moving down until it rested on top of his arc-reactor. It could mean a lot of things, and as current enemies, it possibly looked like a threat — him holding Tony's wrist to the ground with one hand and covering his life-supporting device with the other — which would explain why he gasped. He needn't have worried, because the only thing Steve did was fist a handful of his perfectly pressed shirt to drag him up as he descended to finally — _finally_ — kiss him.

It was supposed to be a slow, tentative sort of kiss, where you show your intentions and allow the person you're with to get used to the idea and respond as they wished. It turned out somewhat differently. When Tony's breath touched his lips, Steve lost all the good reasoning that had led him to be the leader of the most dangerous people on planet earth — just like that; it was over. He devoured Tony in the way he had dreamed of doing thousands of times before, still holding the man down and pulling him up, trying desperately to say with his body all his mouth had failed to say.

One of them moaned into the kiss, or perhaps both of them did, and suddenly Tony's free hand was touching his exposed lower back. It was too much and not enough. Steve traced his bottom lip with his tongue. Tony tasted so goddamn good — like coffee and mint — and it only served to drive him wild. Steve crushed their mouths together, wanting nothing more than to explore every inch of the man beneath him for as long as he was allowed.

In the back of his mind, Steve knew it was the wrong place and time to be doing that. They weren't alone and had yet to talk things through, but he couldn't find it in himself to stop pressing against Tony even harder or fist his shirt even tighter. He had wanted to do that for so long, that now he had him exactly where he needed, Steve would be damned if he would be the first to let go. As long as Tony carried on being so beautifully responsive under his ministrations, it was all perfect.

"Sir, perhaps it would be wise to rearrange locations," The same bodyguard from before suggested, his voice flat despite the scene they had to be making at the moment. And although Steve wished to ignore the suggestion, it served to snap Tony out of whatever trance he had been under until then, because he immediately recoiled from Steve's touch and, in a moment of distraction, pried his fingers from their current position. For a second, Steve debated whether it would be more efficient to kill the bodyguard or grab Tony and run.

"Come," Pepper said, mentioning for Steve to allow Tony to get up from the ground.

It was a reasonable request, and he knew he had done enough damage without a public show like that, but none of that made it easier for him to release the man's clothes and get up. It felt as if the man in front of him would disappear the moment Steve failed to make a physical connection. He compromised with himself and settled on offering his hand to help Tony as he got up, and was pleasantly surprised when he accepted the help with no sign of distress or a sarcastic comment.

When Pepper mentioned for them to follow her out of the party, Steve didn't look back.

* * *

"-can't believe that you'd come back here after all this time just because-"

Tony had been on a roll since his CEO had opened a door to an empty room and demanded they stayed there until they had settled something between them. The moment they found themselves alone, the engineer had begun going through a speech that seemed way too perfected to be expontaneous. It felt good to think that Tony had most likely thought about what he would say to him when they met again, so he leaned against the wall and decided to hear it all.

"-if you didn't have what it takes to live as criminals-"

Steve was quickly regretting his decision, however, because Tony was under so many misconceptions about his motives and his decisions that he had to suppress several winces and quite a few scowls as he carried on with the monologue. The final straw was when he took a deep breath only to go over the same things he had already spoken about. Tony had clearly worked himself into a frenzy.

"-do you have any idea how much it took to get those accords-"

"WILL YOU LET ME SPEAK?" Steve screamed over Tony's words, after what felt like hours listening to him going on and on about everything and nothing at all.

He jumped in surprise at the raised voice, though, only then seeming to realize his position in the room as he paced nervously.

"Yeah... er, yes. Sorry."

"Thank you," he exhaled. "Tony, I think you miss understand me. I don't miss the pleasantries — I was in the army, I grew up a poor kid in Brooklyn. I don't give a damn about all that. I care that my team is divided, that all the work we did to become a somewhat-functional group when down the drain. I care that Clint is missing Natasha like crazy, and Sam cannot see James anymore, and Wanda will not stop crying over Vision. I care that I wake up in my bed every day by myself and you're not there. That's what I care about."

He ignored Tony's pained wince.

"When I saw Bucky, I promised myself: If I get to have this, if I get to keep my best friend after all this time, then I'll ask for nothing else — I'll face whatever comes my way, and I'll do it happily. And I've tried, but I can't. I just can't. I'm selfish — I am. I just want you more than I care about anything else. So, you want me to sign the accords? Fine, just give me a damn pen."

"Steve, that's- you're kidding-you can't-"

"Do I look like I'm joking?" He asked, knowing his face couldn't be more serious if he tried. "I'm done. I've followed by beliefs all my life, I've done right by everyone I could, but I'm done, this is where I draw my line. I'll give up on all of it; if only I can have you."

The desperation was clear on his face.

"Okay—yes! Steve, they've changed so much! I've personally worked on the document," He rushed to say. "I can see why they weren't working the way they were before, but now-"

"I know." He was the one who interrupted that time. "Tony, obviously I've kept a close watch on everything."

A pause. A breath.

"I left, but I haven't stop considering you all my team."

"Well, that punch to the face and that whole fighting business sure had me fooled," Tony tried to go for sarcasm, but his broken voice belied the true pain behind his words. Steve resisted the urge to flinch, instead, going for a lighter tone as well:

"To be quite honest, Bucky did try to kill me a couple of times as well and I never stopped considering him my best friend."

Tony released a strangled laugh at that, torn between amusement, desperation, and surprise.

"You have to see how being on the right side of the law is important to me," he said. "And to us. I'm an engineer; I need my assets, my workshop, my company to do what I do. The team relies on me to provide — in all sorts of ways… if I don't have that, then I might as well be a civilian."

"That's a whole bunch of nonsense, right there," Steve protested, incredulous that he was hearing that from Stark of all people. "You are who you are regardless of where and how. You built your first armor in a cave in the middle of the desert, so quit the bullcrap, alright? And you'd be an Avenger whether you were in your workshop or in an abandoned warehouse in Iraq."

It was too much for him, it was easy to see that. Tony looked more uncomfortable hearing Steve uncovering his personality than he did facing life-threatening situations. It was both endearing and maddening. How had them — as Tony friends — done so wrong by him that he was still so unaccustomed to listen to them saying good things about who he was and what he did?

"How are the others?" Tony suddenly asked. A clear distraction. "Steve... Just…how are them?"

"Alive," Steve went straight to the point. "Don't worry, if something had happened I'd have led with that. We're all a little worse for wear, but alive and well, nonetheless. We're ready to come home, though."

Tony cleared his throat softly, perhaps looking more uncomfortable than before, and when he spoke, his eyes shifted to the side.

"The tower is — your stuff… is all still there."

"And my room?" he asked, gauging the other man's reaction carefully. Perhaps they had settled on the team's business, but Steve had gone to that party for more than just that. He wanted Tony, more than he wanted Iron Man.

"I may, or may not, have wrecked it in a fit of anger six months ago," Tony answered with a grimace. Then, seeming to think better of it, shrugged before adding. "I can have new things delivered."

"If I don't want new things?" He pressed, stepping closer with each uttered word.

Steve made sure to leave his expressions clear on his face and his eyes locked with Tony's. The time to be subtle had longed passed — if the engineer wanted or needed any clarification on the matter of his affection, Steve would be only too glad to oblige.

Tony raised one eyebrow, although he didn't seem to actually be surprised. It was more of a challenge than anything else, which, in turn, instantly pumped adrenaline into Steve's already overworked system. He ready himself for the response he could see forming on the man's lips, praying to get lucky — even if he knew he did not deserve it — and have Tony be straightforward for once in his life.

Apparently, though, he needn't have worried. He wasn't the only one tired of running.

"My bed is quite big," he said, shrugging once more.

"Good."

"Good," Tony repeated, with a small, satisfied, smile.

This time, when he turned to leave the room, Steve followed.


End file.
